How To Design A House From Scratch: 10 Steps

How To Design A House From Scratch

Design a House: Designing your home from scratch involves a few steps that you have to take. Make sure that the house fits within the building envelope and complies with all requirements.

Your home must comply with the Building Code of Australia, the New Construction Code and State and Local Council Laws.
In Queensland the setbacks fron your home need to comply with the Queensland Development Code.
Local Councils may also have specific requirements that apply to your city or shire.
Finally your also required to comply with the Local Area Plan of the land estate you are building.
As well as meeting the Covenant that your developer has placed on your land.

Before You Start Designing Your Home

Before you start designing your home you need as a minimum a copy of the Development Covenant . You also need a copy of the Disclosure Plan or a Site Survey of the land. Disclosure plans are prepared before the land is titled. There may be some inconsistencies with the final registered plan of the land.

The Building Envelope

Before you can work out the maximum width and length of your home you need to draw the building envelope.
Draw out the building envelope, take into account the setbacks required from the boundary of your land to your house.
Setbacks are covered by the codes mentioned above, BCA, QDC, LAP and Land Covenant.
Note: Setbacks are traditionally set to the Outer Most Projection of the home.
The OMP is usually the fascia line. However some newer covenants calculate the OMP to the external wall of the house.

Home Size

Once you’ve established the building envelope you now know the maximum building lines that your home can stretch out to.
The maximum size of your home is also governed by the codes mentioned above.
The maximum size of your home is usually stated as a percentage of site cover.
As an example site cover on a larger lot may be 50% and a smaller lot may have a site cover of 70%.

Starting To Design Your Home

We’ve established the maximum size area of your home and the maximum outer limits of the external walls.
Usually the best place to start pencilling out the layout of your house plans is to start with the garage.

Garage Location

Garage location is often nominated on the development plans. If there is no garage side nominated on your land then the other consideration to take into account is the slope of your land. Ideally my preference is to locate the garage and driveway on the high side of the land to reduce the steepness of the driveway. Most building sites will be equal cut and fill, putting the driveway on the high side means your not putting your driveway on the fill side.

Master Bedroom Location

A key design requirement for a lot of people is the master bedroom location. Some people prefer the master bedroom at the front of the house. Other people prefer the master bedroom located in the middle or down the back of the home.

Front or Rear Master Bedroom

Choosing master bedroom location is usually a very personal decision and reasons for choosing the location can vary. From the feeling of security from being located at the front. Some clients prefer the quietness and easy access to the backyard and entertaining.
Land with views may make the master bedroom location choice the best place to take advantage of the amenities of the land.

Rooms Required in a New Home

Before we can start to work on the layout of the rooms we need to decide the rooms that will be required in the home.

• Bedrooms & Studies
• Living & Entertainment Rooms
• Bathrooms, Ensuites, Powder Rooms
• Kitchen & Butlers Pantry
• Laundry and Mud Rooms
• Storage Rooms, Robes & Linen
• Outdoor Entertaining & Covered Areas
• Garages and Carports

Your budget and maximum home size will govern the choice of rooms.

Planning The Room Layout

Our process from this point is to design the required rooms amongst the rooms we have already chosen the location for.

Open Plan or more Private Bedrooms

Remember good home design allows for a natural flow throughout the home. Long dark hallways are often not desirable.
Conversely a fully open plan home with no hallways will also not suit many people.

One of the keys to good home design is to create interlocking rooms rather than just joining up boxes.
Use the shape of the main rooms to create spaces for other components of your home such as cupboards or a recess for a shower.

Its good practice to draw as a minimum the front elevation.
Ideally you would draw all four elevations and a cross section.
Drawing the roof plan can be beneficial if your having a non typical roof as some roof shapes can be more complex.

Energy Efficiency

You’ll need an energy efficiency design report done as part of your home design. When laying out your rooms consider which side of the house the sun rises and sets. You can choose which rooms receive the morning sun. The morning sun will warm your home. The western side of your home will be subject to the hot setting sun.

Preliminary Budget Estimates

Once you have a Sketch House Plan you should consider a Preliminary Budget Estimate to determine if your on track with your project cost.

Not For Construction Drawings

Once your happy with the layout of your rooms it’s time to go to the next stage and finish the main plans ready for costing and prepare structural drawings.
Main Plans Include:

• Site Plan
• Roof Plan
• Floor Plan
• Slab Plan
• Elevations
• Cross Section
• Electrical Layout Plan

Structural Drawings

Structural drawings allow your home to be cost estimated more accurately.
Structural Drawings Include:

• Foundation Design
• Framing & Tie-Down Design

Specifications

Specifications & Inclusions should be developed to include as much as possible to ensure your home building goes smoothly.
Ideally you should choose your colours at this stage as well so you know exactly what everything is going to be and the cost will be known in advance.

Contract Plans

If your building with a builder or using a project manager then you can proceed to contract with these plans and specifications.

Approved Plans

Once you have your House Plans and Structural Plans ready its time for Building Approval.

Construction Plans

The approved plans may be used as construction plans.
Construction plans with more building details may also be released if required.

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How To Design A House